


As Seen on Beltane Eve

by De Orakle (Delphi)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Beltane, Carnival, Drama, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Public Sex, Religion, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-06-01
Updated: 2002-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:27:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/De%20Orakle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hogwarts staff and students attend a fair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Seen on Beltane Eve

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Snape Fuh-Q Fest First Wave. Scenario #106: _Teachers and students attend a carnival._

From the old henge high on the hill, the view rolls down into the spectacle of light and colour burning deep in the bowl of the Hogsway valley. A riot: startling and hypnotic to eyes fresh from the forest night, lanterns and garlands and flickering torches. Sparklers and glow-wands flitting about like lightning bugs.

From such a height, the pinstriped circus tents seem nothing more than a handful of peppermint candies scattered in the grass, the spinning carnival rides clever miniatures that might be plucked between two fingers and held in the palm of one hand.

Ears perked, one can catch a faint buzzing on the air—shouting and tinned music and conversation all swarming together and rising as one. The occasional bass note is felt rather than heard.

Breathe in.

There is the old reek of bodies gone to dust, ancient bones buried beneath ancient stones. It has been centuries since sacrifices have been laid here. Even the name of the henge has been forgotten, and the local folk, afraid to offend, have left it so. But the smell of dust is fading; it is springtime, and all that was old is being made new again. The air is sultry, seductive with wet earth and eager pollen. It is powerful and agitating and arousing. From the valley, only the scent of magic has ventured this far, a thin, distant smell as of sugar burning, but farther down will be the smells of popping corn and fried dough, and the rank smell of the animal pens.

And another scent, of another sort of animal. Sweat on the warm spring evening. Excitement. Anticipation.

Taste it.

And look closer.

To one light among thousands, a thin flickering flame caged in glass. It dances against the deep black night, then disappears in a blink.

Reappears.

Disappears.

The glass is the wet curve of an eyeball. Iris as black as its pupil, like clear water on a moonless night, like the eye of a stag.

Severus Snape closes his eyes, and all the lights of the carnival fade to faint orange starbursts through his eyelids. The cacophony is more difficult to keep out. The carnival rides are fuelled by quiet magic, but there is the sound of rushing wind, and the dizzy screams of the tilt-a-whirl riders, childish laughter, shrill and piercing. Grifters hawk their crooked games with loudspeaker spells, and passers-by have to shout to converse:

"Got to hit the freefall ride before we—" "Mummy, I want a—" "So Nigel said—"

Though even these begin to fade as his heartbeat grows louder. The rustlings of his robes sound momentous. He can hear the blood coursing through his veins as the hand slides further up his thigh. Can hear the sound of skin rubbing against skin. His lips part slightly, and he sucks air through his teeth.

"Will you stop that?" he whispers loudly, his hand cupped over his mouth, seemingly addressing empty air.

Lean forward.

To peer over the edge of the abandoned ticket-taker booth that Severus Snape has commandeered. Sitting in the grass before Severus's folding chair, hidden from casual view, is a man. His legs are stretched out underneath the chair, crossed at the ankles. He is eating a spun sugar delicately from its stick and has one hand inside Severus's robes.

And he is not stopping. Not when Severus wiggles back in his seat. Not when Severus gasps. Not even when Severus goes stock-still and slaps at his hand, meeting the wary gaze of a boy in the footpath aisle between the carnival booths.

The boy's eyes flicker from Severus's to the pile of books perched on the booth's ledge—purchases from Flourish & Blotts' stand—to the plastic cup of orange squash sans complimentary twisty straw. The boy's impertinent stare is unbroken for a long moment before he is pulled away by his companions: a bushy-haired girl with an impatient air and a lanky redheaded boy holding a large stuffed hippogriff.

"Come on, Harry—the fair's almost closing and the line for the Bumper Dragons is enormous!"

Follow.

The burnt memory of Severus Snape's flushed cheeks as it is carried away with them. The trio cut a short, twisting path through pedestrians and gawkers, the girl in the lead.

The boy, Harry, shakes his head. His glasses teeter on the bridge of his nose. "Can't believe they let Snape in," he mutters under his breath.

The redheaded boy at his side glances back, but the crowd has swallowed up his line of sight. He narrowly avoids a collision with a small girl holding a dragon-shaped balloon on a string and hop-skips to right himself. "Yeah," he says around a mouthful of taffy. "Thought this was supposed to be a _Fun_ Fair."

The girl shoulders purposefully through a small group idling in front of the ring-toss. She too looks back the way they came before taking her place at the end of a long line. "Really, you two. He was only sitting there."

The redheaded boy grimaces. "Probably taking a break from confiscating candy. 'Ten points from Gryffindor for having fun!'" He stands on tiptoes and peers back towards the booth.

Severus has opened a book now. _The Grimoire of Ethelbert Stoat._ He has opened it to a random page and will not turn it for some time.

Look closer.

He has one hand in his lap, holding his robes rucked up around his hips. He is wearing nothing underneath. His hips are twitching, twitching. Where the firelight shines on his upper thighs, one can see sticky smears from wet, sugary kisses.

"Lovely," says the man at his feet, cupping the skin as though he expects the pale cream of it to flow through his fingers.

He licks. "And sweet."

And licks.

"So sweet."

Look up.

To Severus's face, held in his free hand. His lower lip is caught between his teeth. His eyes are fixed on a single word of text, meaningless, blots of ink. The word resounds in his mind: 'Flower'.

'Flower.'

It echoes in another's thoughts, startling. Might have gone unheard if the taste of the mind were not so fresh, its shape familiar. The boy, Harry, is thinking 'flower, flower' in a whisper.

Dart forward.

In through the back of the boy's head and out through his eyes. He is looking at a small sprig of flowers carved into a nearby tent post. A design of a small sprig of flowers, that is. He is human, after all, and the difference in his mind is slight. Something prickles along the back of his neck, and he shivers.

"Beltane flowers," the girl says uncannily, barely glancing up from her pamphlet. The Hogsmeade Mayday Fun Fair.

"What are you on about?" asks the redhead, guiltily tearing his eyes away from the front of the girl's robes. There is a slight swell to her chest, and he knows the gentle curve of it very well.

She gestures towards the design with the pamphlet. "Harry was looking at it. It's the Beltane flowers—they're carved all over, even painted on the inside of some of the tents."

Harry frowns, tracing each line of the bouquet with his eyes as if committing it to memory, or trying to match it to something already there.

"What is it?" the redhead asks, his gaze sliding irresistibly back down to the girl's chest.

She looks at him shrewdly. "Your family aren't Pagan, then?"

He looks up. "No, we're Resurrectionists. Haven't been to church in ages, mind."

"But you've at least read this, haven't you?" The girl brandishes the pamphlet accusingly.

Both boys look uncomfortable. The redhead rolls his eyes.

"They give them out for a reason, you know," she says. "It has a whole section on the history of the fair."

"Oh," says Harry. "I think it fell out of my pocket on the tilt-a-whirl."

"Come on, Hermione," says the redheaded boy. "Who reads at a fair? I used mine as a napkin after the nachos."

"If you'd read this, you'd know that the Mayday fair has its roots in the pagan celebration of Beltane."

"Good to know, Professor Granger," the redheaded boy mutters, and Harry snickers.

"Well, I thought you of all people would be interested. Beltane is a fertility holiday, after all. In the old days, the Fun Fair was—well, it was a bit of an orgy, really."

Both boys look up smartly. The girl blushes but continues on bravely.

"Traditionally, it was meant to be the great horned god and the virgin goddess...er...coming together as an allegory for a fruitful harvest. The god was meant to come down from the hill, and the goddess up from the lake. The people lit bonfires in the middle, and drank quite a bit, and then had...fertility ceremonies."

The redheaded boy's eyes are once again following that familiar curve. "Yeah? So why are we wasting our time waiting to ride the Bumper Dragons?"

"Well they don't do it anymore, do they?" the girl says rather peevishly. "Haven't for centuries. It's been celebrated as Mayday ever since Hogsmeade proper was founded. Most people here are Resurrectionists anyway and will you please stop staring at my chest?"

The boy blushes scarlet to the tips of his ears. "Get your knickers in a twist, why don't you! Just looked like you had something on your robes. Nacho sauce or something."

"Oh...well then."

"Yeah. Um, Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"Would you like my hippogriff?" He thrusts the monstrous stuffed thing towards her.

"All right," she says, and the boy grins a freckly grin.

Harry looks away.

Away.

To nowhere in particular, perhaps a girl with black hair and dark eyes, passing arm in arm with a group of giggling friends. Perhaps behind his eyes the fires are burning, and naked bodies dance, and a great antlered man takes a gillyweed-draped woman in his arms. Perhaps he thinks a moment on the fire burning in Severus Snape's eyes. Perhaps he hardens and then blushes guiltily. And his thoughts are clear. 'Well, they don't do it anymore, do they? Not for centuries.'

In any case, there is little more to see here, when one with very sharp ears can catch and hold a series of tiny sighs. Air the shape of Severus Snape's mouth, puffed out through parted lips.

A small noise jumps guiltily in the back of Severus's throat. The sharp tang of blood as he bites the inside of his lip too hard.

Look through, over and under.

Severus has shifted to the very edge of his chair. The balance is precarious. His legs are spread wide, his feet planted firmly. His fingernails dig small half-moons into the skin of his thigh.

Faint kisses, the mere brush of fingertips. The warm air is more forceful a lover than the man at his feet. Quiet whispers against his skin. Lovely, sweet. My lovely, my sweet.

Severus looks up into the torch's flame, and the burning reflects in his eyes. In his mouth. In his heart. In his loins.

"Oh, for the god's sake..." he moans.

His prayer floats out into the air like pollen, joining hundreds of others. Swarming in the night with pleading and anticipation and, most of all, welcome.

"Indeed," says the man at Severus's feet. And it is then that he stops. Withdraws his hand and gently pulls down the hem of Severus's robes.

See.

As he licks his fingers, smiling at Severus's scowl. He stands, unworried of being seen, and trails his wet fingers over Severus's lap.

"I will see you at the fires."

Look down.

At the moonlight laying the shadows out on the ground. Deep black holes where the standing stones try to reach out towards the town. Small, moving shapes. A latticework pattern that might prove to be a magnificent rack of antlers. Or perhaps nothing more than the bare branches of the oak trees.

Descend.

Down the hill.

And wait.

For the Lady to rise virgin from her lake. For the first bonfire to be lit.


End file.
